I'll be giving a talk about ethnopsychedelia as part of a two day event celebrating and exploring the work of the excellent Seattle-based Sublime Frequencies label, whose provocative presentations of musics from around the planet I've been an admirer of for a while.  Syrian pop star Omar Souleyman and Western Sahara rock band Group Doueh (both are amazing!) will perform, the SF guys will talk about their work, and there will be films, DJ sets, discussion.

Audio of talk available here.

Here's my original essay on SF and ethnopsychedelia.

See the Transmediale website for further details.

I have an essay entitled "John Giorno: Buddhism, Poetry, and Transgression" in this new collection of essays The Emergence of Buddhist American Literature edited by Gary Storhoff and John Whalen-Bridge -- which will be published this summer.  "The encounter between Buddhism and American literature has been a powerful one for both parties. While Buddhism fueled the Beat movement’s resounding critique of the United States as a spiritually dead society, Beat writers and others have shaped how Buddhism has been presented to and perceived by a North American audience. Contributors to this volume explore how Asian influences have been adapted to American desires in literary works and at Buddhist poetics, or how Buddhist practices emerge in literary works. Starting with early aesthetic theories of Ernest Fenollosa, made famous but also distorted by Ezra Pound, the book moves on to the countercultural voices associated with the Beat movement and its friends and heirs such as Ginsberg, Kerouac, Snyder, Giorno, Waldman, and Whalen. The volume also considers the work of contemporary American writers of color influenced by Buddhism, such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Charles Johnson, and Lan Cao. An interview with Kingston is included." From the Publisher.